“You ass!”
He gave me a shrug. “I trusted you to save me.”
“You could’ve died,” I argued. “Not exactly a good trust exercise.”
He grinned. “Maybe not, but a decent one at seeing if you’d hesitate with your magic or not.”
I tipped my head back and groaned. “Can we go heal some trees now?”
Owen held up a finger. “Stretch first. Then trees.”
“Fine.”
I was still shocked Owen had trusted my magic enough to have caught him, but it’d been such a great morning that I wasn’t going to let Owen’s poor decisions ruin this day.
Minutes later as we walked in the direction of The Dead Lake, Owen asked, “Do you want to train early mornings or late nights? Doing both is hell on both of us and you use enough magic now that there is no need for both. So I’ll let you pick.”
I thought that over. “If we train early morning, Krew and Keir will be done with their usual training sooner?” I hated mornings. Loathed them entirely, but I also enjoyed being able to spend my nights with Krew. If he had to practice with Keir and then with me every night, we were up entirely too late every night. Though maybe that was safest to keep from the king, I selfishly wanted those nights with my husband.
“Yes.”
I wanted to stomp. I couldn’t believe I was actually signing up for this. I knew I needed to practice combining my magic with Krew. And then we needed to see if Keir’s magic would combine with Krew’s once his combined with mine, but I also preferred training with just Owen. He wasn’t my husband. He was a safe place I could use my magic without the added emotions of having the princes around. “Mornings.”
“You do know we will have to be up at dawn to train every morning before the king awakes?”
I sighed. “I do.”
Owen grinned but then threw out, “You know I’m not going to go easy on you, right honey?”
“You know I’m going to be belligerent every morning, right honey?”
As soon as we made it in view of the lake, still black unfortunately, I looked at the two healthy and growing trees I’d already healed. I had wanted to heal one or two a day and turn them all to green, but Krew and Keir had been adamant about it being a slow process. Doing too much too fast would be a clear sign to the king that something drastic had changed.
Like me being given magic.
“Can I do that huge one over there?” I asked. “Its roots touch the lake.” Drawing my magic into my fingers, I shot it into a sound barrier and magic barrier around us, making it thick enough to block out anyone who would happen upon us. I’d rather them see a random dome of silver magic than see magic flowing from my palms.
Owen was eyeballing my magic when I turned to look at him. “Sure.”
In a few short minutes, I had healed the large tree with the roots in the lake and one other small tree next to it.
I smiled triumphantly as I walked back to where Owen stood. “Let’s go feed the wolves now.”
“Race you back to the kitchen?”
He didn’t give me the opportunity to answer, he just took off.
“That’s cheating,” I called as I took off after him.
As we wove our way back to the meadow, feet pounding into the ground as we ran, I felt and heard footsteps near to us.
Slowing slightly, I saw a gray and black blur through the trees running alongside us.
Rafe. Rafe and his second were running with Owen and me.
We slowed to a walk as we hit the meadow.
“I’ll go get the food,” Owen offered. “Don’t piss off the wolves while I’m gone.”
